Hanseatic Cog (Umbum - Clever Peper Ltd)

Here I present a short review of  cardboard Hanseatic Cog from Umbum - Clever Peper.

The finished ship

During lockdown I ordered some Cardboard scenic from the Russian firm Umbum. The range, including many medieval building, the Cog, a Greek Bireme and an Arabian Dhow and many many other things in different scales was designed by Clever Peper Ltd and is available both from the Russian  and the German online shop. Their products are also available through retailers (Amazon and others). I ordered straight from the Russian shop, since I made a massive order and price was very competitive, even with shipping and import taxes added. I thank Eugene for availability and kindness in answering my questions and helping me following my order across half Europe. Their products are designed at approximately scale 1/65 - 1/70 as toys, but RPGgamers started using them as scenics. They also include their miniatures about 28-30 mm in height.

The front of the Box

The rear of the box

The Hanseatic Cog box contains four sprues with numbered pieces, a booklet of instructions, a short rope used for rigging the sails and ...a toothpick! (seems silly, but really useful to remove small cardboard pieces). The set is meant to be assembled without knife/scissors and glue.

Content

The toothpick!

Content/2

A detail of the booklet

The kit took about three and half hours to completion and the only real issue was making the knots right and able to be moved to put into tension the sail. The instruction of real sailors' knots help immersing in the nautical atmosphere. After building it, the kit is ready to be placed on the tabletop. It is about 29 cm long, 8 cm width, 3 cm height of the bulwark, 21 cm for the mast.

Working...in the Arsenale

Here with both my Catalan crew (Admiral Roger Lauria) and Umbum cardboard miniature.

Aggressive Marine ready to assail enemy ships!

In conclusion: the kit is reasonable priced (500 rubles from Russia), and makes surely a nice piece of terrain in any sea city scenario. Maybe it could be also a gaming piece on his own (more to follow).

Admiral Lauria, almughavar and crossbowmen

Catalan-Aragonese ready to become the main Power in 13th century Mediterranean!

Contrast paint - first impressions

I bought a couple of Games Workshop Contrast Paint (Contrast from now on) one year ago, on the wave of enthusiasm. They have been sitting in a corner of my painting desk until this spring.  I was stuck with little to no willing of painting, so I decided to give them a try. I'm still painting.

I purchased about 3/4 of the line and these are my observation about them so far.

My Contrast collection so far. I should probably buy a rack for display

Contrast are not (of course) colors in the traditional term, since they are meant to paint both base and shades with one passage, so they are rather are highly pigmented inks or shade. Remember: they are very liquid. Colors vary a lot in pigment density and quality, for example Militarium Green is a bit light in pigment and need at least two coats to be efficient, otherwise it could result in speckled figures. Black Templar is also not very pigmented and can result in "not so black" color. Iyanden Yellow is, so far, my favorite color, even if tend to dissociate yellow and orange pigments so it need to be lay with a bit of attention and remember to shake the pot before painting.

Painting with Contrast only seems easy: painting with contrast at basic level is very accessible, but I think that achieving a high quality model requires a good hand skill, maybe at the same level than traditional painting: you can direct the flow of this liquid color, and the effect varies with the brush size, quantity of color absorbed in it, the pressure, the way you lay the color them, how many layer of paints you lay. So lot of different results, actually. Basilicanum Grey is paradigmatic: can vary a lot with the quantity of liquid placed on the miniature.

Cloak on left model, mail and sword on right one, are both painted with Basilicanum Grey.
Hard to believe, I know.

The primer is very important: I found myself at ease with Wraithbone spray but you really have to experiment: the final result can vary a lot. Only remind that a smooth basecoat is essential for let Contrast flow, the risk is the color could evidence the granularity of the primer.

Base Wraithbone is essential. It is the same primer but you can lay it with a brush: you will need it to cover the smears. Important! With small exceptions they're not able to cover other colors smear, and I suggest painting the figures from lighter to darker colors for this reason. 

Attention on metals! I tried using Contrast to shade Vallejo real metal colors and I found both Wildwood and Skeleton Horde tend to give them a brass effect. I decided for now to use non metal color (i.e. Basilicanum Grey, see picture above).

Not the best picture, but the gun was painted with Vallejo Silvermetal and then washed with Skeleton Horde. The result are brassy shadows. Other colors are Contrast.

Which miniatures are (in my opinion) best painted with contrast paint?  Well they work greats on simple, plain clothes and fur (both in clothes and on animals, including horses). I would avoid armies with a lot of tiny details (as Napoleonics), if you want to go full Contrast. Otherwise, you could use contrast paint for basic uniform and then revert to traditional painting for details. Also bear in mind that the colors selection is (compared with other brands) quite small: you will probably have issues finding the right shade of blue for that particular regiment in that particular campaign. But...you can always mix them and create new colors, I found no particular issues with that, just remember avoid mixing with water. 

In conclusion: the miniatures are not gonna painting themselves, but choosing the right subject they allow to spare an enormous amount of time and going right into playing with an army nicely painted (using it unpainted was never an option). I am very happy with them and I must thank them for getting back to painting.

Swedish Thirty Years War Army

The Swedish army was the most notable one during Thirty years war (TYW): well trained, well led, achieved many successes on the battlefield and still sparks inspiration between wargamers.

I found a fabulous offer on the net for a beautifully painted  Swedish army and couldn't hold myself from buying it! A lot of infantry and cavalry ready to be led by Gustavus Adolphus! Its only drawback was the artillery: only one leather gun. I remedied painting a heavy gun: a great chance to test also GW new contrast paint (but I'll talk about them in another post). I plan to use them with Tercios for great battles and Pikeman's Lament for smaller clashes.

Here is a gallery of the miniatures, kindly host by Paolo's display closet, and a first playtest of Pikeman's Lament (more in another post).

DBA 3.0 online game

As a wargamer, I always found human interaction around the gaming table to be very important. But recently the COVID-19 epidemic brought avoc in our lives, forbidding this little joy.

I found a lot of people is going digital: both on electronic simulation (from Tabletop simulator to electronic game) and on streamed games. Luckily I found a couple of mate I could set up an online game, so I thank Alexander Veronensis (many of you might have met him on Facebook DBA group) and Luca for this opportunity.

We chose DBA 3.0, a game I'm not very familiar with, but I was always interested in trying it. The small number of pieces (24 bases) and the easy rules made it a perfect candidate for testing online gaming.

I led the Carthaginians against Luca's Romans: Alexander was the umpire: he has the best knowledge of the rules, the armies and so set the table.  He moved the bases according to our orders and resolved the dice rolls.

The battle was incredibly won by my ill-leaded Carthaginians thanks to a combat roll which allowed my warband do dissolve (quick kill) a Roman legion. This bought me time to conquer the Roman camp with my light cavalry right before the break of my infantry.

Some consideration: online gaming is not the future of gaming (at least for me), but in these times allows to keep playing and chatting with friends. It's more easy with an umpire and secret deployment is always funny. The main difficulty were explaining some orders and framing correctly the table with the webcam!

deployment areas

streaming the battlefield

the Romans

the Carthaginians

Gaming the Crusader - Pillaging the Village

Our playtesting for Lion Rampant: Gaming the Crusader goes on (see the previous post) Yesterday we were in Lazise (a beatiful village on the shores of Lake Garda) for Lazise Gioca, a rather new convention (3rd edition) of boardgaming and wargaming.

Again, I cannot tell you very much about the scenario, but it involves a village, its villagers and some raiders. The scenario is meant to be played by four players, which allowed us to let several people have a taste of the rules during the day.

We had a lot of fun, people trying the game had a lot of fun and rules were very easily learned, as usual. Lion Rampant confirms a great potential as gateway game.

And now, enjoy the pictures!

Gaming the Crusades - first playtest

Recently our club "Band of Butei" joined the group "Gaming the Crusades" (their Facebook page and their website) to offer some help developing an expansion for Lion Rampant, called "Lion Rampant: the Crusades", which aim to cover the period from the First Crusade to the Fall of Acre in the Near East, offering historically detailed scenarios, specific army list and special rules to involve the players and the readers in the epic story of the Crusades.

Last week we had our first playest. We cannot reveal much about it to avoid spoilers, but at the current state is based on the Lion Rampant scenario "The Messenger". We had a Syrian Principate (Islamic) retinue trying to avoid an Knights Hospitaller ambush. Or at least their leader. But they failed.

Anyway what we can do is post some pictures of our game and assure you this project is worth the waiting! Enjoy!

Rebels and Patriots, first AAR

First game and first thoughts with Rebels and Patriots, Osprey Wargames last rules by Michael Leck and Daniel Mersey.

Rules took definitely a lot from Rampant mechanics, but most of all from Rampant mentality: they aim to provide a fast fun game, both cinematic and historically plausible, through reflecting the ebb and flow of the 18th to 19th century warfare without dealing with a lot of minutiae.

Quick insight: they succeed in giving me the feeling of being a company commander of the period, without sinking me in a lot of details to remember. 

If you're looking for a ruleset with lot of tables for different weapons this could not be your first choice, but probably you'll missing a lot of fun.

Since my Risorgimento miniatures aren't painted yet,  I used Franco painted 1/72 Napoleonic figures to test the rules. We deployed a French and a English company.

English 24 points

Line Infantry x2 @8 points

Light Infantry (Rifles) @6 points

Shock Infantry (Highlander) @6 points

Light Cavalry (Scot Greys scouting) @4 points

French 24 points

Line Infantry x2 @8 points

Light Infantry (Voltigeurs) @6 points

Light Infantry (Dragoons scouting) @4 points

Light Artillery @ 4 points

Skirmishers @2 points

English (commanded by Franco) used the terrain better: their cavalry hidden behind woods and charged against formed Voltigeurs. They inflicted a lot of casualties (4), but Voltigeurs didn't faltered and the following turn delivered a deadly volley against the cavalrymen, who ran away.

On the other side, French failed to cover decently their Dragoons behind the woods, taking some silly casualties from English Riflemen. French artillery was deployed over one hill, but failed to contribute in a significant way.

The battle revolved around the central hill, quickly occupied by the English infantry, but French failed at dislodging them. Franco was pretty aggressive, ordered his highlander to charge downhill (BTW being uphill only provide bonus during defense): they destroyed one French line infantry taking only light losses.

They engaged and badly hurted a second infantry unit the following turn, but this time they were repelled in disorder. At this points French Dragoons (hidden better behind the woods) took the moment and charged the Highlander routing them.

Despite this French were soon in such a bad array any more offensive was impossible for them. Luckily the game ended before the last two English unit (both without any significant loss) can reach them.

Probably a lot of mistakes was made, but a lot of fun was had too, overall the game flowed well (and I just read the rules once).

Some thoughts from the first game:

• Cavalry, even if light, charging formed infantry in good order may (if it can avoid being shot ) inflict heavy losses, nonetheless cavalry seems to be a one shot weapon against good order infantry, lacking staying power.
• It's very useful to place a lot terrain, particularly fence and other light covers and not just broken terrain and woods. This would help reducing shooting deadliness.
• Shock infantry may be very powerful in attack: combining first fire, charging, being in close  can bring the needed score to hit the enemy a 2+, pretty deadly!
• Morale tests influenced only by last action losses helps making unit less fragile and stay in game for more turns despite greater casualties rate from firing. I found the morale and order test well thought, overall.
• The game turn continuing after a failed activation has been a very welcomed news. So did the casual charge movement, very well integrated in the order system.
• The officer are more useful now, but I had like more Officers being separated from their "guard unit", since when inside infantry they're quite slow and looks more like sergeants than colonels, but just my opinion and shouldn't be too hard to house rule.

Eventually I think Dan and Michael succeed in create a ruleset easily adaptable to European theater from Seven Years War to French Prussian War, encopassing a lot of (to me) interesting conflicts. I'd resist the urge to buy lots and lots of miniatures!